


make my timbers shake

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Crack Pairing, Gen, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet (the first time) on the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make my timbers shake

They meet (the first time) on the train.

Joyce is neck-deep in the latest issue of Life Magazine but looks up to note the passing of the time. 

"Don't go anywhere, all right?" a man says, his head already turned. His whole body has left the woman's side when she answers, a quiet "All right" and a nod that he doesn't acknowledge. Her eyes are bright and her breath is steady.

The magazine folds easily in Joyce's hand, and she holds it across the aisle.

"Something to keep you busy until he gets back," she says, lifting her chin in a smile.

The woman turns and her eyes scream out in shades of blue but her lips turn up at the corners. She accepts the offering. "I think we've agreed not to miss one another when the other is gone." She nods, and unfolds the magazine, her movements Joyce's mirror. Streetlights rush by behind her head as the woman blinks slowly. She'd make, Joyce thinks, a hell of a picture.

* 

There is no flash, but the shuddery click alerts Beth that she isn't alone. It's a familiar sound, and she smiles reflexively into the sunlight, tugging her robe a little more securely across her middle. The robe is pink, and made of the finest silk. It smells, she thought on Tuesday, like something terrible, like something dark and shapeless that she doesn't have the words for. 

"You aren't supposed to be here," Beth says, watching the shadows of leaves shift across the female face. 

"Press pass," the woman says, raising the camera so the open black eye stares at Beth, perhaps behind her, perhaps through. "I'm on assignment." 

"And I'm--" Beth begins, shudders, halts. Her hand freezes halfway to her face, the wind tugging at pieces of hair. Her vision is marked with cross hatches. The word is there, close, perhaps. She reaches for it, and the light shifts. She extends the hand. "Pleased to meet you." 

She lowers the camera, a corner of her mouth lifted. She's amused, Beth thinks, she's smiling. I've done well. "I didn't introduce myself," she says, but holds out a hand anyway. One step closer and they touch, her textured hand meeting Beth's like the woven surface of a suitcase. Like the first bloom of a bouquet before it goes bad. Like the wall of a hotel room, her body arched and begging and tight and _please_. "Joyce," she adds, tugging Beth gently back from the cosmos. 

Beth shakes her head. "I should go inside. You aren't supposed to be here." She wrings her hands, wishing she could wring the bitter taste from her mouth. She pulls her robe tighter and can see herself bent over her hospital bed, mouth open and soundless. She can feel the white light seeping from her bones, sinking into the soil and drifting in the air like leaves, floating upward. Floating upward and away, frozen by the camera's maw, another _click_ setting her bones ajar. 

* 

She wouldn't know later (fingers pressed to negatives) which direction the wind blew.


End file.
